Listening to Washed Out’s new release Mister Mellow is enjoyable enough, but you risk missing the joke — and the point — if you don’t watch the “visual album” that goes along with it.

The visual part of the album features music videos for each of Mister Mellow’s 12 tracks. It also has a mock interview between Washed Out’s mastermind Ernest Greene and Saturday Night Live’s Kyle Mooney. Mooney plays Charlie aka Mister Mellow, a zonked-out, self-absorbed stoner that makes Shaggy from Scooby Doo look like Ian MacKaye. It’s worth watching the visual album just to see the politely bemused look on Greene’s face as Mooney chatters on inanely.

Even more than the 12 videos, the bits with Mooney underline the message of the album. This, in Greene’s view, is the fanbase for Washed Out: People so caught up in first-world issues and creature comforts that they make themselves ridiculous.

Stones Throw Records’ official press release is even more explicit: “Mister Mellow shines a light on the humor found in this paradox — how can we be so bored and unhappy in what is often a very privileged, contented life?”

This puts these lines from “Burn Out Blues” in a whole different context:

Poor us and our first world problems.

Then there’s “Get Lost,” which mocks both Greene’s chillwave and people’s reaction to it:

But even as Greene pokes fun at his listeners, he still gives them what they want. Mister Mellow’s serene tunes and disco beats are as irresistible as anything on Paracosm or Within and Without. Likewise, the 12 music videos alternate between satire and genuine beauty.

Greene understands the need to get lost inside your mind. He just doesn’t want your mind to get stuck in your rear end.